In order to overcome the current climate emergency and polycrisis a critical approach needs to be explored. This implies analyzing the impacts and trends of the contemporary (inter)relationships between society, culture and digital technologies.
However, the nature of those phenomena is multiclausal. There is not a single factor who produces it. Although capitalism and its form of extractivism can explain why this situation is happening, it is not the only reason.
In addition to those crises, a new one is being added, which is an existential crisis of imagination. Based in social aspects, and led by individualism decisions. By the end, climate change is just one symptom of a complex environmental emergency.
Perception of digital cultures
Metaphors shape the way we understand digital technologies and society. Concepts as Cloud, Virus, Big Data, Trolls are daily used notions to describe the emerging infrastructure. At the same time those are metaphors which provide a shared frame of reference. But more often than not, they distort how they work, the environmental impact they cause and overlook the exploitation of resources and people.
Through the course we develop critical thinking that we use as a lens to understand what is behind those metaphors, which are the impact of digital technologies. Recognising the magnitude of these technologies makes us more responsible as users, consumers and professionals when making decisions.
Materiality of digital cultures
Most of the elements that make up digital technology require specific infrastructures from conception to disposal, such as data centers and e-waste. These installations require a high consumption of natural resources: soil, water, minerals. This is done in an environmentally extractive and socially unequal way. Most of the labour required for the high-risk processes is carried out by people with low economic resources.
Recognising the production phases and the different environmental and social impacts involved in the generation of digital technologies is essential to formulate new sustainable and environmentally and species-friendly scenarios.
Temporality of digital cultures
In addition, we consider other factors that influence our perception of society: time. The intersection of digital technologies in the perception of time has led to the feeling of temporality and social acceleration. This phenomenon leads to the lack of awareness of social impact issues.
Redefining AI practices, educating stakeholders and (re)designing our perception of time, are some strategies to address this issue.
Reality of digital cultures
Reality could be understood as the set of perceptions that we collectively confirm to be true. When the virtual and analoge merge, create a digital layer, which is superimposed over our direct environment, that is augmented reality. This symbiosis between real and digital, opened the possibilities to create infinite realities. But with the multiplication of realities, the limit of the veridical is also shifting, leading to the formulation of disinformation, misinformation, post-truth and fake news.
In order to raise awareness of the current crisis, alongside Digital Culture we develop different critical tools to interpret the socio-economic, socio-technical, and eco-sociological aspects of digital technologies. In addition the understanding of ethical, social, environmental and cultural implications emerging from planetary computation scale. Under this scenario we have the opportunity to imagine alternative futures in a state of climate emergency.
Critical Design Lab
Through the different tools learned during the course, we develop a critical design fiction approach. We materialize it by creating a protovideo and four different artefacts which allow us to imagine alternatives futures. Based on the concepts of e-commerce, biometric authentication and data privacy, we (Vale, Suti and I) imagined a dystopian scenario in Mumbai, where those artefact take place and the video performed.
